Pay raise-plank-Casey
Media Casey's Achilles' heel? : http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/bumsted/s_469657.html : By Brad Bumsted, STATE CAPITOL REPORTER, Sunday, September 10, 2006 HARRISBURG U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum is drawing blood on the issue of the state pay grab. In recent public appearances including his first debate with Democrat challenger Robert P. Casey Jr. on national TV, Santorum, R-Penn Hills, has effectively hammered state Treasurer Casey for signing the lawmakers' pay-jacking paychecks last year. For four months, members of the General Assembly received higher pay through the constitutionally suspect unvouchered expenses. The raise, which hiked lawmakers' pay by 16-54 percent, was repealed last November in response to a storm of protest from taxpayers. A lawsuit filed by citizen-activist Gene Stilp is pending before the state Supreme Court. The Legislature approved the pay hike at 2 a.m. on July 7, 2005, without public notice or debate. It included a provision sidestepping the state's constitutional prohibition against midterm salary increases by allowing lawmakers to take money right away as "unvouchered expenses" in lieu of "salary." Casey joined the lawsuit against the pay raise last March. It was an unusual step because as treasurer he was a defendant in the pay-hike lawsuit. Santorum has gone after the pay issue as if it were Casey's Achilles' heel. "He (Casey) signed the checks for the pay raise, signed them all and sent them out for months, until after the (2005) election," Santorum recently told the Pennsylvania Press Club. "Where was he (Casey) when it counted? Where was he when the wind was blowing the other way? Where was he when it would be politically tough to stand up and say, 'You know what? This is an unconstitutional pay raise. I'm not signing the checks,'" Santorum said. Larry Smar, Casey's spokesman, contends Casey would have been "thrown out of office" if he had refused to sign the checks. Really? It's a total stretch to think that in the political atmosphere of the fall of 2005 Casey would have been impeached if he had stopped signing the checks. He would have been sued, but he also would have been a hero. "Let me be clear on my opposition to this pay raise," Casey wrote in an op-ed article earlier this year. "I did not vote for it. I did not lobby for it. I did not support it. But as state treasurer, I could not stop it." Casey officially went on record against the pay grab with a news release last October and had earlier expressed his opposition in interviews as early as August 2005. Casey said the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had previously ruled that unvouchered expenses "do not violate the prohibition against midterm salary increases." He said he could not "substitute my judgment for that of the judiciary and directly defy a series of Supreme Court rulings." All of this raises a key question about the role of the state treasurer. Some argue that it would be a scary precedent for a state treasurer to simply stop signing checks on an issue he or she feels strongly about. On the other hand, doesn't the treasurer -- as a constitutional officer -- have a duty to stop payment on checks he or she thinks were issued in violation of the law? In fairness, Casey would have been accused of blatant politicking if he had stopped the checks. Whether he should have taken that risk as a matter of principle is an issue for the voters on Nov. 7. Links * Bob Casey